After the War
by GoofyGomez
Summary: After the war, Harry turns his back on the wizarding world for some time to figure things out for himself. His trip leads him to uncover new truths about his new reality. Inspired by this Tumblr post:


After the war, Harry Potter was shocked to come to the realization that he'd survived. It had not crossed his mind that he would, and he told his friends as much. The sight of the destruction the war had left on the world as he knew it, the world that had harboured so many fond memories for him, had been so horrible to see, Harry had broken down barely moments after arriving at the Burrow. It was too much to handle.

He'd spoken to Ron, Hermione, and Ginny about it, and decided that he needed some time to sort things out for himself. To his surprise, they didn't object. Having extracted a promise that they wouldn't reveal his whereabouts to anyone else, Harry bid them farewell and set off to America, where he'd distance himself from the magical world as he knew it.

And so, three months later, Harry put his foot to the pedal as he sped through the countryside just outside some major city, the sun beating down on him from above. Ahead of him, the road stretched on for miles, disappearing in the horizon into the unknown. The heat building up on the concrete distorted its surface, as though a shimmering pool of diamonds awaited him ahead. He smiled.

He looked down at the radio, which was now blaring a rock song loudly, enveloping him like a warm blanket. He liked it, he decided. Ever since he'd arrived here, he'd amassed quite the collection of old cassette records from odd places he visited, stashing them in the glove compartment. He pressed the cassette, removed it, and replaced it with one by the name of "Radiohead".

As he listened to it, he thought of his first days in America. Luckily, he'd been able to acquire a driver's license fairly quickly. Driving wasn't as hard as he thought it would be, he would tell himself as he tried to teach himself the craft. With some of the money he'd exchanged, he bought a beat-up car and set off on the road, no clear destination in mind. He'd considered backpacking through Europe, but the thought of more camping after the year he'd had was enough to drive him insane.

Then, unbidden, his mind wandered to Ginny Weasley, halfway across the world. Her flaming red hair flapping in the wind, her freckles that ran all over her body, that flowery scent that had driven Harry mad for a year. He remembered that time he'd broken up with her over 'some stupid, noble reason', as she'd put it, and the time she'd kissed him after it was all over. She'd promised to wait for him until he got back, even though he knew... he didn't deserve it.

Five minutes later, he saw a figure on the side of the road, standing alone. As he approached it, he saw it was a man, his arm outstretched and his finger held high. His eyes darted toward the visor above him, where his wand was stowed, but he shook his head. He hadn't used magic if he could help it, preferring to do everything the normal way. Magic had lost its appeal somewhat. It felt… tainted, somehow.

"_Magic belonged in the war_", he muttered to himself every night before going to bed and reliving the horrors it had caused. The small, lifeless body of Dobby in his arms. Fred's last smile before the blast that ended his life. Colin Creevey's face, unseeing, on the Great Hall floor. They all taunted him, mocking his failure to save them as he thrashed and screamed in his sleep.

Magic belonged in the war. Magic had stripped him of his parents, his godfather, his own life… It marked him for life as someone with power; someone with the weight of the world thrust upon his shoulders, drifting through life as the punches kept on coming. And they never stopped. Even after he'd defeated Voldemort, he felt powerless. A stupid boy in over his head for whom people gave their lives. _He definitely didn't deserve it._

He shook his head again, slowing down the car and nodding to the hitchhiker, a small smile on his face. He'd met many others like him, travelling to places Harry had never heard of. He listened to their stories as he drove through the country, sometimes choosing to reveal some of his himself. Of course, they were all muggles, so some details had to be glossed over but, to his great surprise, none of the people he met pushed farther than he was willing to say. They were all too glad to talk about themselves, he figured.

As he came to a halt beside the man, he rolled down the passenger window and stared at the hitchhiker. He was a tall man with broad shoulders, a hat on his head and sunglasses on his eyes to shield against the summer sun. He looked a few years older than Harry. He wore cargo shorts, a plain white shirt and he'd flung a large backpack on his right shoulder. Sweat clung to his armpits, and his breath was ragged as he spoke in a friendly tone.

"Thank you," the man said, nodding and smiling at Harry. He did the same. "Are you going to Columbus by any chance?" As a matter of fact, he'd been there not two weeks ago, so he nodded once more and unlocked the car.

Grateful, the man flung his backpack in the backseat and sat down on the passenger seat, closing the door with a thud. He turned to Harry and removed his sunglasses. His eyes were a deep blue, and they surveyed Harry up and down.

"Haven't had much luck out here," he explained as Harry set off once more, heading due north. "Not a lot of people stop for hitchhikers these days."

"I was heading there anyway," Harry lied, shrugging. "What's your name?" he asked amicably, casting a side glance at him and then one at his wand. _Magic belonged in the war,_ he told himself.

"Mark Thorne," said the man, removing his hat and running a hand through his blond hair, slick with sweat. "And yours?"

It was a nice change of pace to have people ask for his name, rather than goggle at him and his scar. Here, away from the wizarding world, he was just another face. Just another man driving through the country with no purpose in life. _No purpose in life_, he thought fondly, relishing the freedom that simple sentence carried.

"Harry Potter," he said, nodding. He passed a sign that told him it was another 150 miles to Columbus, with only one stop in between. "What are you doing in Columbus?" he asked.

Mark heaved a sigh and said, "I'm meeting my friends there. See, we live very far away from each other, and none of us has a car, so we decided to go to a middle point between us. That's Columbus. I've been walking for like 3 hours and my legs were already cramping up."

"Sounds fun," Harry said, chuckling.

"Not so much," said Mark, grinning. "You have no idea how many cars just passed by me without a second glance. One old woman even glared at me, I think."

"Reckon it's that one?" he said, pointing at the back of a car that loomed ever closer.

Harry passed it with a surge of speed, and Mark whistled from beside him. "And here I thought this old thing could go no further than sixty," he commented, nodding in approval. After a few seconds of silence, he asked, "And what about you? Long way from home."

It was true, he knew, but something inside told him he didn't really _have_ a home. _There's the Burrow,_ another voice piped in helpfully. But yet, some shred of doubt still lingered in him. Would he even be welcome there when he went back? _Would he ever have the courage to go back?_ In the end, he settled for chuckling again.

"Yeah, I needed to get away."

"Amen to that, brother," Mark said, raising an invisible glass in the air. "What are you, like nineteen?"

"Eighteen."

"Must have been bad back there, huh?" Mark said with a solemn tone.

"You could say that," Harry said bitterly. Indeed, it had been bad, though not for the reasons Mark thought. Sometimes Harry wished he could talk about it with one of these people, but they wouldn't understand. _They'd think I was mad_, he thought. _They'd laugh and think I was pulling their hair._

The next hour passed by in silence, punctuated by the music coming from the stereo. Every now and then, Mark made a remark about his music taste, and Harry would just nod and smile. About twenty minutes before they arrived at their destination, Mark cocked his head and asked the last question Harry wanted to hear.

"What's that scar from?" He pointed at Harry's forehead, where the lightning bolt scar stood as a constant reminder that Harry was _special_. The scar that told the world that he'd survived the Killing Curse from Voldemort. The scar that had made him famous; that had marked his future thereafter. He must have winced because Mark backtracked. "Sorry, didn't mean to be rude."

"It's okay," Harry said, sighing. "It's from when my parents died," he explained, as if that settled the matter.

"They – oh..." Mark trailed off, looking far off into the horizon, where the outline of a city loomed ever closer, bathed in a golden hue in the afternoon sun. "Sorry for asking."

Then, he fell silent. When they passed a dingy hotel, its sign hanging from a single thread of rope on a pole sticking out from above the mahogany door, Mark cleared his throat awkwardly.

"This is my stop," he said, jabbing a finger outside. Harry nodded and pulled over, unlocking the car. "Thanks for the ride, Harry."

"It was no problem," he said, managing a small smile.

"I hope you figure things out soon, man," Mark said sadly, nodding. "Good luck." And with that, he heaved the backpack onto his back and walked off, disappearing inside the hotel.

"I hope so too," Harry said to himself, sighing.

That was how most of his days had been

That night, as he lay on a bed in a considerably better hotel not far from there, he stared up at the ceiling, his eyelids drooping. It had become a habit to stay up as late as he could, lest he give in to the nightmares for longer than he absolutely had to. He had them constantly, no matter what he did. And they were always the same...

When his brain finally betrayed him and he drifted off, he found himself in the Great Hall again, deserted but for himself. He looked around warily, expecting the worst. Suddenly, he heard voices around him. They were soft at first and then got louder, echoing against the high walls of the Hall. They screamed his name, over and over again.

He pressed his hands to his ears, unable to bear another night of torture, but the voices were relentless, slithering into his skull like one of Uncle Vernon's drills. They hammered into him as he shrunk in on himself, screaming, begging them to stop, to leave him alone.

They cursed him, hatred seeping through their bodiless voices. He was on his knees now, his hands pressed tightly to his ears. Cries of despair and horror ripped through the otherwise still air. They seem to shatter the windows around him, showering him with glass.

"GO AWAY!" he bellowed, but his voice was hoarse, much too strained. He felt his throat close up, his airways contracting. His hands flew to his neck, gasping for breath. Surely, he could save himself with his wand, he thought, reaching for it in his pocket.

_No, magic belongs to the war!_ a new voice, much higher than the rest, screamed at him, making him pull up short. It was right, he knew. He shouldn't; couldn't... With a final gasp, the world around him became dark, and he woke again, sweat clinging to his face as he struggled to control his rattled breathing. _It was just a nightmare._

_But was it?_

Most of his nights were that way these days, to the point where Harry had begun to wonder if it was even worth fighting it anymore. The few nights his thoughts managed to drift away from the war, he dreamt of Ginny, Ron, and Hermione, their laughing faces alight with joy as he watched them from a distance. Sometimes, he tried talking to them, but their faces became hard and their laughter died out as if they were upset that he'd push his luck by even daring to speak in their direction. Suffice to say, he was getting tired of it.

After the encounter with Mark Thorne, he came across many other stragglers and offered them a place in the passenger seat. It felt nice to listen to stories that didn't remind him of the wizarding world. He found, to his great surprise, that he could even relate to some of the problems the muggles had in their everyday lives, though they all felt distant somehow.

Once, after dropping a rather chatty young woman off at a town just outside San Francisco, he pulled over in a deserted alley and broke down on the steering wheel, too overwhelmed to even attempt to stop the flow of tears. Throughout the conversation, he'd smile genially, laughing at the jokes Maria, the chatty woman, had told him. But Harry knew better than to fool himself into believing he could even begin to relate to her.

She hadn't lived through what he'd lived through; hadn't had to carry the weight of a prophecy on her shoulders from the age of fifteen. It had all seemed hard at the time, Harry thought ruefully, but he realised now that he'd been mistaken. The hardest part was what came _after._ The weight of all he'd gone through in the past seven years suddenly seemed to dawn on him.

Why couldn't he have been like all other people, unperturbed by the tides of fate? Was it so much to ask for Harry to want a regular life, with regular teenager problems? Was he selfish for wanting a normal schooling experience without having to sacrifice himself for the _greater good_?

He supposed that was the point of this whole trip; to find out what it was like not to be a world-saving hero, but just... Harry. Numbly, he'd wiped his tears drove off, his breathing still rather uneven.

A month later, he was driving along yet another deserted highway. He was now listening to AC/DC on the radio, bobbing his head along to the rhythm. It was peaceful. The day was warm. The bag of groceries he'd bought rattled in the backseat, reminding him that he was hungry. He picked up a sandwich from one of the bags and bit into it greedily.

Minutes later, he spotted a silhouette a few miles ahead on the side of the road. Putting his sandwich down, he squinted against the glare of the sun. It was an older man, no younger than eighty, carrying nothing but a small paper bag and walking along the road.

Harry pulled over next to him. "Sir, do you need a ride?" he asked.

The old man pondered his question for a moment, looking far into the horizon longingly and then back at Harry. His face was full of wrinkles and his eyes were a soft grey. They reminded him of Dumbledore's blue ones, for some reason. He wore, to Harry's surprise, an army uniform. Many badges were pinned to his chest, and the tag at his breast read 'Colonel'.

He seemed to deem Harry's offer acceptable as he smiled and nodded, getting into the already unlocked car. He placed his hands on his lap, intertwining his long, white fingers. "Thank you, young man," he said softly, not looking at Harry.

Offering the man a smile, he drove off. "Where are you going, sir?"

Again, the old man took his time, licking his lips slowly as he looked out the window, the smile long gone from his wizened face. "Scottsdale," he said finally, pointing a pale finger through the windshield. "Should be a few hundred miles, however. I hope that's not a bother."

"Not at all," Harry said, shaking his head. "I was going there anyway." That was his standard response, as he didn't really have a single destination in mind.

The man nodded shortly. Silence ensued. Neither of them spoke for a while, choosing instead to take in the changing scenery as the desert gave way to a green pasture, small trees littering the horizon. They saw no other cars, though that was to be expected on a Sunday afternoon, Harry thought.

After a while, the man cleared his throat and Harry turned to him. He wore a small smile that accented his wrinkled features. His hair, or what was left of it, was silvery white. It reminded him of Dumbledore once more, though his former Headmaster had had much longer hair, and had rarely looked as frail.

"I'm going to my best friend's funeral," the man said suddenly, startling Harry. He searched for words to say in such a situation but was saved the trouble when the old man elaborated. "I haven't seen him in years. Since just after the war, actually," he mused, half to himself.

Harry frowned. "Was he... in the army as well?" he asked carefully, casting a side glance at the veteran, who nodded slowly.

"He was," he said fondly. "One of the best, one of the best."

Harry looked forward, his thoughts drifting to Ron and Hermione, and to all the crazy adventures the three of them had gotten themselves into. He imagined himself driving to one of their funerals, a fond smile on his face as he thought of them. It was too much to handle, however, so he shook his head and willed it away.

He didn't know why he spoke up, but when he did, a sudden weight seemed to have lifted from his lungs, letting him breathe normally again.

"I was a soldier too," he said, pursing his lips.

The veteran looked at him from the passenger seat with a raised eyebrow, his eyes softening somewhat. "Were you?" he said, in a tone that definitely reminded him of his former headmaster.

"Yeah," he muttered, looking down for a moment. Again, impulse took over and he asked, "How do you do it?"

"How do I do what?" the man asked, intrigued.

"How do you live after the war?" Harry said, shaking his head. "Because it's so hard... It's so hard to adjust to a life I didn't think I'd have. Hard to think about settling down and marrying the girl I thought I'd never see again." He thought of Ginny, his eyes watering as he talked, unable to contain himself now that he'd started.

The man regarded him with a soft expression, silent as he let Harry let it all out.

"It's hard to think not everyone around me is an enemy." He remembered what it had been like after Dumbledore's death. No one to trust but himself and his friends, looking over their shoulders at every turn, having to work in the shadows as Voldemort grew more powerful.

The veteran seemed to weigh his words before answering, blinking slowly.

"Were you a prisoner of war," he asked softly, "or undercover?"

Harry chuckled. "Both, in a way." It was true, he knew, though he couldn't quite explain it to him. "I was lost for a long time, searching for a way to end my mission, to end the war. In the end, I got out of it alive, but there's something inside me... Something's definitely dead, you know?"

"How old are you?" the man asked, eyebrows raised at Harry's words.

"Eighteen," Harry said, making the man turn his head so rapidly Harry thought he might crack it. But he said nothing. Harry knew why. Some armies – some wars – don't care about your age.

They drove on in silence after that, barely listening to the radio as he sped through the pasture and back into a desert that seemed to go on forever. His thoughts dreadfully drifted back to the Final Battle, to the moment when Voldemort's forces had retreated, leaving them to collect their dead. Again, the face of Colin Creevey taunted him, pale and lifeless. The boy had been sixteen, not even of age. Yet he'd sneaked into the battlefield. The Death Eaters, however, didn't care how many OWLs you'd gotten or how well you'd performed in your Defence Against the Dark Arts exam.

_Magic belongs in the war._

"I think," he said after a while, cocking his head, "I think the dead thing is me."

"What makes you say that, son?" the man asked, not unkindly.

"When I killed the enemy." He thought of Voldemort, his limp body falling dead on the floor of the Great Hall. "I killed myself as well." Again, that was true, in a twisted sort of way.

Another long silence. Harry's eyes filled with tears once more, thinking of home. Thinking of Hogwarts, where Ginny and Hermione had just started their final year. He thought of Ron, joining his brother George in managing the joke shop in Diagon Alley. He thought of Sirius, of his broad smile as he'd clapped at his parents' wedding, wearing his best tuxedo.

He thought about his parents and their untimely deaths. Their sacrifice had made it possible for him to be here, and he was grateful for that. Yet a part of him wished he'd died with them that night. He remembered that night in the Forbidden Forest when he used the Resurrection Stone.

"_Will you stay with me?" _he'd asked his father, his heart in his throat.

"_Until the very end."_ James Potter had said, a smile etched on his young face.

"No," said a voice to his right, and he turned. The man was looking at him with a frown on his wrinkled face.

"What?" he said, dabbing at his eyes to wipe the tears away.

"No, you lived," the man said, more firmly this time. "And you'll keep living, son. You see, living after a war is not about forgetting the horrors you saw."

Harry thought that wouldn't be such a bad idea, in truth. The man placed a hand on Harry's shoulder and felt himself shudder beneath his touch.

"I was sent to the frontlines during the Second War," the old man said conversationally, looking through the windshield into the horizon again. "I got drafted with some friends of mine, and we got into the same battalion. We were eager to prove ourselves, young and stupid that we were."

"I wasn't long before we realised how _wrong _we'd been. Men we'd joked with in Boot Camp dropped dead before us, shot by some German soldier or other, and we just kept shooting back. At the time, we knew in our hearts it was the right thing. We were fighting for our freedom, we told ourselves."

"But you're right about one thing. We may not have been prisoners, but we were _trapped._ Trapped in a war we didn't belong in, the power to take lives at the tips of our fingers. And we embraced it willingly. The truth is, no matter what you try and tell yourself, those things stay with you until you're old."

Harry never spoke as the man kept talking, entranced by his voice as it became stronger and harder. He could hear the pain in it, the hurt of retelling such horrors, and he finally found himself relating to him; truly relating to him, much more than he'd done with any other muggle.

"Living after the war is not about forgetting those horrors," the man repeated slowly. "It's about learning to live with them, embracing them," he said softly, nodding as Harry drove on, unable to tear his eyes from the road ahead.

"One day, you'll be ready to marry that girl of yours. One day, you'll forgive yourself for the things you did," he said, almost knowingly.

"Now that you've got out of the war," he finished firmly, smiling at the young man at the steering wheel, "it's time to get the war out of you."

Harry said nothing and instead chose to keep driving, but the man seemed to take this as an appropriate response because he said nothing and sat back on his seat, a hard expression on his face. It was a mixture of sadness and, surprisingly, fondness. Harry thought he could understand.

Much as he hated to admit it, those times when everything seemed lost, when nothing seemed to make sense, had been the times he _thrived_. He was good in such situations, he knew. It was the unknown he feared now; the uncertainty of his future.

Faster and faster Harry drove, his eyes watering every few seconds, his hand dabbing furiously at them. At one point, he couldn't take it any longer. He pulled over on the side of the road, casting a fleeting glance at the man, who cocked his head.

Sparing him an apologetic smile, Harry got out of the car and walked a few paces through the grass around him. He couldn't remember the desert around him turning into this beautiful sight, yet green fields covered the ground as far as the eye could see. Weak, his knees gave way and he slumped on the ground. He let the tears stream freely from his eyes now, but his mouth was curled into a smile.

Before he knew what he was doing, he was laughing. It all seemed so silly, looking back on it, he thought. But he couldn't seem to stop. His hands grazed the soft, tall grass that grew around him. Suddenly, flowers the colour of the rainbow sprang up around him, blossoming in seconds as their petals opened up to him.

He took in a deep breath, closing his eyes. He felt a rush of power within him, much like he'd felt that night against Voldemort. But this time, it felt different. It was peaceful and pure and _fun._ Unspoiled, somehow.

He knew it wouldn't always feel this way, but for now, it was enough. Because for now, he was the boy who lived again.

_The boy who lived after the war..._


End file.
